Verified Mark Certificates (VMC)

What is a VMC and How Do VMCs work?

VMC helps organizations prove their legitimacy to their email recipients by verifying their brand logo. It complements Brand Indicators for Message Identification (BIMI) that helps organizations display their unique brand logos alongside DMARC-compliant emails. This promotes a consistent emailing experience that is both visually appealing and authenticated.

Step 1: Make your emails DMARC Compliant 

To get your VMC, as a prerequisite you need to gain DMARC compliance on your emails. DMARC helps you mitigate the risk of email abuse and impersonation attacks like phishing, spoofing, and ransomware by authenticating emails sent from your domain. It also helps in spam compliance and improves email deliverability. 

Simply configuring the protocol with a published DNS record is not enough to fulfill VMC requirements. To get on board, a minimum DMARC enforcement level of p=reject/quarantine is necessary. 

Step 2: Purchase your Verified Mark Certificate

The next step is to purchase your VMC from a trusted, industry-recognized, and licensed Certification Authority. Make sure your brand logo is trademarked and converted to SVG format before you place the order for your VMC.

Step 3: Implement BIMI at Your Organization

After getting hold of your verified mark certificate, you can now configure BIMI for your organization to make sure your emails can be visually authenticated, and your selected logos are being displayed by supported mailbox providers. 

How can Growing Businesses Benefit from VMC and BIMI? 

• Verified emails increase engagement rates and instill trust 

Logos are used across all of the email experiences in an effort to create a consistent, trusted brand that is visually identifiable. VMC and BIMI help you increase visibility, recall, and engagement—including a 10% increase in engagement rates—by creating a marketing experience that visually differentiates you from the competition.

• It is a visual indication of a legitimate and authenticated email 

VMC is the best way to ensure that your emails are delivered securely from end to end by making it mandatory for domain owners to enforce their DMARC policies before purchasing the certificate. It helps prevent common email security problems like spoofing, phishing, and BEC. When you use VMC with DMARC authentication, you also make it harder for unscrupulous senders to steal identities.

• It helps email senders choose which logo should be attached

When you use VMC, you can choose which logo should be displayed in your brand’s campaigns. This means that if you have multiple logos, you can select different logos to be displayed for different communication channels. Then, when you upload a logo to your authenticated domain and configure BIMI, the chosen logo will be displayed in your recipient’s inboxes for mailbox providers who support BIMI.

• A great marketing tool that provides a visually compelling email experience 

VMC and BIMI go hand-in-hand to provide a visually appealing email experience for organizations and their clients alike. It is a great marketing tool that helps domain owners make the most of their email marketing campaigns, reducing the chances of their emails being ignored, and enhancing their brand’s recall and recognition. It provides a more consistent and professional look to your business emails that is sure to capture your client’s attention.

Frequently Asked Questions on VMC for BIMI

How many VMCs do I need if I own and operate multiple domains? 

Even if you operate multiple domains, you need to purchase only one VMC for all your domains provided that you want only one standard logo to be displayed across all email channels. However, if you have more than one logo, you need to purchase one VMC per logo.

How to get my logo trademarked? 

According to VMC guidelines, if you don’t have a trademarked logo, you need to get your logo trademarked by an official intellectual property office that is functional in your country. Once your logo is trademarked, it will have an ‘®’ symbol attached to it.